new pictures
July, 2016
I have all these new pictures in my head that help calm me, that help remind me. The Bedouin stars and the blazing fire and everyone's hearts open and dancing and spilling. Nati and the bulldozers on the Gaza Strip in Sderot, filing the land away, back and forth, back and forth. The children's smiles and running and climbing, all the while, their playtime contained to a bomb shelter. The rounded room of names and stories, filled 3/4 of the way, and knowing, still, that's not enough.
The bulldozer pushing emaciated bodies into another ditch dug and the glow of Jerusalem between a matte metal triangle; the strength and love and prosperity despite the starvation and murderous gas and anonymous bullets; still, a city built for all lost to be found. Stacked, rebuilt, layering dedication one after another, after another, after another. Like the faith, like our history. Constantly beaten down, and still, every time, standing back up, fighting back, sticking out ground and beliefs because we are all brothers and we'll be damned if we let another one fall.
I can see tanned smoking skins bathing in the Jordan river, free from their guns and uniform for the day and basking in our big strong sun. The same sun that has been peeking out, rising behind mountains, finally showing itself, as the perfect little egg yolk it is, dripping across Masada, and Manhattan and even fucking Maryland, and Oslo. It seeps into irrigation, and crevices and ruins built and preserved, down into the dead sea, floating among crystals and tourists reading the news paper. Spreading across hot hot sand and mud and I think of the hilarity of the muddy commerce culture and how dirt becomes a present for home.
Staring at me are these bright beaming blue eyes, reaching further with plump plump lips. We kiss and I see this picture painting in my head of him as a beautiful boy. And when we talk I see that he's still that beautiful little boy. Later, he held me against the waves, above his waist and I wrapped around him and the water around us and he got hard for me and he kissed me and his tongue breached my mouth and Yaffa's beachy salt water ours.
The high rises and flowers and beggars and beautiful beautiful crumbling buildings and homes. The wrapped woman on the terrace hanging out today's laundry. The old couple with their wine and smoke, enjoying the same breeze, the same side street they have been since they first moved into that little apartment and during their first trimester and still until they're both buried.
Three new life long friends, consoling, remembering. All of us, crying, hugging, with not one fear or thought or craving in the world to be anywhere, anywhere at all, but right there, right here, in this beautiful fluttering now.